The Old-School President of St. John’s CollegeEmbraces Technology … Slowly

CHRIS TOPHER B. NELSON can hardly be blamed for his slow courtship with technology. He is president of St. John’s College, a tradition-boundinstitution that embraces a classical curriculumthat would make Socrates proud. Indeed, someadministrators on the Annapolis, Md., campuswere skeptical when Mr. Nelson took a shineto e-mail and the use of digital documents lessthan a decade ago.“They used to joke that the school wouldsomehow change when the president finallycaved in,” Mr. Nelson says.Mr. Nelson, 65, stands at the helm of one ofSt. John’s two campuses, the other of which islocated in SantaFe, N.M. St.John’s describesitself as a “greatbooks” collegeand follows a re-quired curricu-lum that tracesthe “seminalworks of West-ern civilization”in chronologi-cal order. As aPC or Mac?Mostly PC, but he’s loving the iPadFavorite spots on the Web:An amateur art collector, he visitsgalleries online.Skill he wishes he had:Greater facility with word processing. Hecomposes most documents in e-mail.1970 graduate of St. John’s, Mr. Nelson is alsoa product of its old-school ethos. He went on toearn a law degree and practiced law for 18 yearsin Chicago before returning to his alma materas president.While technology has not passed Mr. Nelsonby, he is hardly a techie. On his birthday severalyears ago, his wife gave him an Amazon Kindlee-reader. He has yet to even charge the battery.“I love the texture of the page,” he says.Given the tomes that Mr. Nelson has a habitof carrying around, a Kindle might make sense.On a recent vacation, he tried to check a bagat the airport with a 10-pound copy of Warand Peace shoved inside. He was able to make itunder the 50-pound limit only by removing thebook.While he does not use a digital tablet forreading, Mr. Nelson is slowly incorporating aniPad into his work routine. Long in the habit ofprinting out reams of documents for meetings,he can now find most of what he needs on thetablet.Typing remains a challenge, though. DuringMr. Nelson’s grade-school days, boys were sentto shop class while girls learned the then-secre-tarial art of typing. He gets by with a fast huntand peck.Of all the technological advances that havechanged his job, Mr. Nelson says e-mail hasbeen the most transformational. “The tele-phone rings about 90 percent less than it did,”he says. “The e-mail has gone from zero to 85percent of the communications I get.”While he carries a BlackBerry, Mr. Nelsonuses it only for e-mail and prefers not to makecalls from a cellphone. “I don’t remember mynumber,” he says. —JACK S TRIPLING

SUSANA RAAB FOR THE CHRONICLESt. John’s College president Christopher B. Nelson(center) leads a seminar on “War and Peace.”In Spokane, the Chancellor Is Wedded to Her BlackBerry

Christine
Johnson (left),
chancellor of
the Community
Colleges of
Spokane, checks
e-mail on her
BlackBerry as a
student stands by.

WHEN I T COMES to the latest cyber- developments, the chancellor of the Community Colleges of Spo- kane in Washington State is a bitof a digital Puritan. Christine Johnson doesn’tblog or tweet. When she texts, it is in full sen-tences, using proper English. She has an iPadprovided by the college, but it doesn’t containa single song or Facebook photo. She uses justone app: Google Maps.“I use whatever lets me do my work and helpsme use my time well,” says Ms. Johnson, whotook the helm of the state’s second-largest com-munity-college system in 2010. “I have plentyof information to manage, so I’m choosy aboutwhat I bring into my already crowded sched-ule.”This isn’t to say that the chancellor, 59, whoholds a doctorate in educational administra-tion, is averse to technology. She remainswedded to her BlackBerry. And when collegetrustees were given iPads, she became a devo-tee. Here was a way for board members, whooversee a sprawling district in rural easternWashington, to keep in touch and easily shareofficial documents and PowerPoint presenta-tions.The iPad has now replaced the monthly100-page-plus information packets that had tobe photocopied, collated, and mailed. Docu-ments are now merged into a single PDF fileand posted online before each board meeting.“What took one to two days” to put together,says Linda Graham, executive assistant to thechancellor, “now takes approximately 30 min-utes total.” The conversion was so completethat the board now conducts its business essen-tially without paper.With the constant barrage of information,Ms. Johnson says administrators are sometimeschallenged to stay focused. During meetings,laptops constantly beep, and mobile devicesvibrate with an urgency that is hard to ignore.Administrators and faculty are so stretched,she says, that there’s a tendency to virtually at-tend more than one meeting at a time. “I thinkwe’ve all become a little compulsive,” she says.There’s no longer such a thing as downtime,because there’s always an e-mail to answer ora report to review. “It’s true that having moretechnology, one works longer,” she says. “Sit-ting and having a cup of tea, that just doesn’thappen anymore.” Ms. Johnson often doesn’tturn her BlackBerry off until late at night, aftera nudge from her husband.

Hardest to turn off:“It’s a little outdated, but I love the Black-Berry.”Can’t get the hang of:“Getting used to the touch of the iPad. Iactually ordered an additional keyboard.”Digital prowess:“I can do PowerPoints, charts, and graphs.”Favorite reading device:“I love books. I like to hold them. I like thefeel of them.”Doesn’t miss:“I never liked carrying a laptop. They wereheavy and clunky.”B16 THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION • THE DIGITAL CAMPUSMAY 4, 2012